An alarm sounded

[backlash 1]

I was out yesterday on my last open water trip of the season and I heard it. It sounded like it was coming from the dash, a high pitched squeal. I immediately looked for a pee stream, and it was there, so I ran the rpms up to about 1500 in neutral for about 30 seconds and the squeal stopped, and I went back to backtrolling. Afew min later it did it again, I shut er down and checked the oil, which was fine, also lifted the motor and checked the water inlets on the lower unit, fine... started it up and it worked fine the rest of the trip. What happened? I guess I thought an engine alarm would come from the engine? any other alarms on here i'm not aware of? 03 1650 crestliner CS w/F60 Yamaha.

[boatfixer]

Weak impeller most likely. At an idle it may not be able to provide enough water and when you ran it up to 1500 it was able to cool it down.

[marine_man]

Sounds like it to me as well... have you replaced the impeller since you've owned the boat?

marine_man

[backlash 1]

Ya, I put a new impeller in it just last spring.

[marine_man]

Well, that changes things a bit.

Were you running in a shallow area and you could have had weeds covering / blocking your water intake?

If it was a continuous buzzer it's either no oil or overheat...

I would montior it and see if it happens again, especially given that you had a good stream on the telltale stream indicator and replaced it last spring.

marine_man

[backlash 1]

OK, i'm hoping for the best. The 371 landing on gull is very shallow just behind the blow out hole. The better half usually fires up the boat and gets ready while I park the truck. I noticed she likes to put the motor down just a little to far and I have to raise it a little to back out, so it is entirely possible something might have gotten sucked in, although it has never happened before. When I put the muffs on it later that afternoon at home getting it ready for storage, I noticed the stream probably has never been better, very strong.

[marine_man]

The muffs are not a good indication of water pump integrity - the water is pressurized going into the motor, so the impeller doesn't have to work hard to suck the water, just to push it.

That said, I'd re-evaluate it come spring.

marine_man

[mikee]

Had that happen to me twice this spring. Took it in and the tech said that I had fine pressure. It happened again. It quite after I added more oil. Not sure exactly what it was. There was no indication on my gauges that I needed oil. Hasn't happened since May and I have had it out 3-4 times a week.

[mamohr686]

Does your motor have a fuel/water seperator on it? I know of several Mercury motors that have alarms that go off when the filter on the fuel/water sep. gets full of water and can no longer function correctly. Otherwise it has to be an overheat or oil issue as stated before.

[marine_man]

The 60 yamaha does not...

marine_man